My anxiety and depressive episodes in recent years have impacted upon my life considerably. But finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I write to offer a message of hope, a message that hopefully will resonate with many mental health sufferers. It gets better.

The only way to beat anxiety disorders is to get to know yourself, properly. Admitting you have a problem is different to owning that problem and understanding the conflict between your brain and body.

There is however a large number of people whose symptoms of anxiety and depression are caused by a myriad of other factors and for whom CBT is not necessarily the panacea it is sometimes promised to be.

The development of effective and evidence-based psychological treatments is one of the major triumphs of the last decades. And based on this triumph, some folks say we don't really need to know why they work, we just need more of them. But that is jumping the gun on policy, and may just further embed the status quo into our management of mental health problems.

Even if you know what you should eat, it is still hard to break old habits. It's not what you are eating, but what's eating you. For me, and I suspect it is the same for most people, our attitude to food is as much about emotion as it is about satisfying hunger.

For some perfectionism is an internal wasteland where all positives are ignored and life is like wading through treacle. For others perfectionism makes the outside world never enough and disappointment poisons most activities and relationships. Perfectionists walk a tightrope where impending disaster is held at bay with extreme effort.

An intensive course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) along with strong support from a close network of family and friends has helped me regain control of my life. It is clear now that if it were not for the persistent efforts of others, I would not be where I am today.

Are you scared of spiders? Dogs? Heights? If so, you are certainly not alone. Around 10 million people in the UK are thought to suffer from a 'simple' phobia (also known as a 'specific' phobia, because you are scared of one, specific thing, rather than suffering from more generalised anxiety).

The cold weather that meant you had to change into a warmer coat, which then made you late. And who knows what this little delay in your schedule caused you to miss, maybe a bad bout of traffic, maybe an accident? Perhaps as the result of this you met a lady at the bus stop who you wouldn't usually see. Maybe she inspired you?

If you are suffering from an anxiety disorder - such as health anxiety, social phobia, generalised anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or post-traumatic stress disorder - or are just plain worried, you are likely to be plagued by anxiety-provoking, 'intrusive thoughts'.

Granted, January is a pretty gloomy month (I was shocked to see a blue sky today, having forgotten what one looked like), but why is that particular day more depressing than any other? Well, of course, it's not. Blue Monday was actually invented by a psychologist to help promote some travel company.

I think that, as a society, the shocking level of treatment for some of our most vulnerable members should make us all angry - and that this anger should propel us all to take action, in whatever way we see fit, until we remedy this deplorable situation.

Having sat in on a number of CBT sessions for OCD after being wrongly-diagnosed with a strange form of the illness - religiously over-thinking, later diagnosed as a form of social anxiety - I began to see what was happening to these people's lives.

Know somebody that you just cannot get on with? Does their behaviour irritate and confuse you? Are they generally a massive pain in the distal digestive tract? There is always the possibility that they have a personality disorder. If, however, everybody you know seems like this... maybe you do!

It's natural for your mood to fluctuate - everyone feels a little down sometimes. But when that low mood persists for days or weeks, you may be suffering from depression. Here are five of the most helpful strategies I have found for clients suffering from the condition.